


Never been better

by TerresDeBrume



Series: Flash Fic Night Prompts [43]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Don't drink after getting electrocuted please, Drinking, Gen, Istanbul, Neither do con men, Post-Canon, Spies don't get rest, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 04:18:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13562658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: In the early hours of their mission in Istanbul, Napoleon invites his teammates to a drinking contest.It’s not as lighthearted as it looks.





	Never been better

**Author's Note:**

> I do love the idea of them as steadfast friends (and the OT3 is lovely) but I have trouble believing it'd happen very soon after Rome.

“You do realize it isn’t going to bite you, don’t you Peril?”

 

Illya, bless his predictable heart, scowls at the mere suggestion of fear, and squares his shoulders. His eyes dart to the left, where Teller is aggressively lounging on an elegant green sofa, but Napoleon ignores it and pushes the bottle of rakı across the coffee table.

 

“It’s terribly rude to refuse a drink offered in good faith.”

“This is a bad idea.”

 

Illya’s eyes are back on Napoleon, the frown between them far too deep for comfort, and Napoleon widens his smile. Schools his features into triumphant delight. Lays sarcasm thick in his voice before he asks:

 

“Why, Peril, are you forfeiting already?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Cowboy,” Illya replies in a low voice. “I can drink you under the table, no problem.”

 

Illya’s eyes slip to Teller again, followed by a painful pinch of lips. Napoleon waits until Illya starts speaking before he misinterprets the gesture:

 

“Of course.”

 

A sigh. A shake of his head. A smile.

 

“Where are my manners. Would you like to join us, Gaby?”

 

Teller’s eyes move fast. Sharp. Somewhere along Napoleon’s shins, the phantom memory of a car hood brushing too close tingles, and he widens his smiles a little; a brief show of teeth that makes Teller’s eyebrows rise behind her sunglasses.

She stands from the couch a beat too late, purses her lips a tad too far. Her eyes, when Napoleon catches them, lack the crinkles to lend credence to her light tone:

 

“I’d be delighted. What are we playing for?”

“A bed under the window,” Napoleon decides on the spot.

 

If he wins, he’ll get fresh air. If he loses, he’ll be closer to the bathroom. He can work with both of those options.

 

“And we drink until what? Someone passes out?”

“No.”

 

Illya’s tone drops too low, too fast. A great actor, agent Kuryakin is not, and Napoleon catches Teller’s eyebrows drawing together when she looks at their Russian friend. Is she doing it on purpose? She’s sitting close to Illya, well past the circle of coworkers and into the nebulous sphere of people longing for something that might be a bed or might be a heart to heart conversation. Napoleon watches her watch Illya, lips pressing together again. The gesture is too obvious to miss, not obvious enough to telegraph a ploy. May be genuine. May be faked.

There’s no real way to tell, and it puts some excess cheer in Napoleon’s next words:

 

“If I didn’t know better, Peril, I’d think you were trying to ruin our fun.”

 

Illya’s eyes linger on Napoleon’s face, trail down to his chest. Napoleon watches the movement catch Teller’s gaze, drag it there along with a renewed look of puzzlement. It cools into something too close to calculation, and Napoleon decides he doesn’t want the window that badly after all.

 

“Alright,” he says with a carefully put-upon sigh. “Until someone gets sick it is.”

 

Illya, who spent the best part of last night tailing a mark and hasn’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday, nods, some of the tension easing out of his shoulders. He still looks at Napoleon’s heart for too long, but by now the sun is low enough on Istanbul to make it look like he’s avoiding the light.

 

Truly a terrible actor.

 

“Well, mister Solo,” Teller says once she’s retrieved a rakı glass from the coffee table’s inside compartment, “start pouring.”

 

Napoleon does, with his right hand on the bottle and the left one on his glass. It’s a hefty dose, and there's little enough water in the mix afterward for the drinks to deserve their nickname of ‘lion’s milk’, but neither Teller nor Illya flinch at the sight of it. Napoleon raises his glass with a flourish and downs it all in one go, quickening the pace halfway through so he doesn’t finish later than his drinking partners.

 

Teller refills their glasses right away, Napoleon’s eyes on her hands the whole time, and he catches Illya’s eyes drifting away when he looks up. Terrible actor, yes, but a competent spy. He’ll need to work on the pink guilt dusting his cheeks when he’s caught in the distrust, but that’s alright. Napoleon can help with that.

 

“May the best spy win,” he says before they get to their second glass, and lets his grin stretch wider than reasonable when Illya glares at him after drinking twice as fast as the first time.

 

They drink in silence, playfulness ebbing away with every glass, until Napoleon’s fingers almost slip around the bottle; and Illya gets to his feet and carefully does not run to the bathroom. Teller’s eyes track Illya’s move all the way to the door, then dive back into her glass. Her frown grows deeper, but she doesn’t look at Napoleon, which is just as well. There’s too much of a cool breeze to justify the moisture above his lips.

 

“You know,” Napoleon says when Illya comes out of the bathroom after a few minutes of too-regular retching, “I would have thought you’d last longer.”

“Shut up,” Illya growls, pale cheeks framing the irritated pink rims of his eyes. “Go to bed, Cowboy.”

 

Napoleon makes the appropriate noise about wanting a shower first, and slows his movements just long enough for Gaby to roll her eyes and stride into their shared bathroom. Napoleon sits back down and his heart lags behind for a beat or two, as if caught on a hook in the air. It makes his landing heavier, forces him to put most of his weight on the coffee table rather than carry it. Of course, Illya doesn’t have the grace to miss it.

 

“You doing okay, Cowboy?”

 

Seventy-two hours ago, Napoleon could have wept with relief at hearing those words, but he didn’t. He doesn’t give in to the urge now, either. He raises his glass instead—too swift, lacking flourish—and grits his teeth to maintain his smile.

 

“Never been better.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and reviews make me want to keep writing :3


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